Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Product warning: Zone Hardware brand roller blinds

One of the roller blinds we installed was a Zone Hardware blockout roller blind sold by Bunnings. Fine for the first week, but then with the week after putting out some hot sun and heat, the blind started to produce an intolerable, unbelievably intense odour, something like bleach, chlorine and poison gas all mixed in together.

It was so bad that when entering the house, all you could smell was this stench! We had to open the window in that room and close the door so the whole house wouldn't get contaminated.

I sent an email to Zone Hardware through their website reporting the problem, but after a week of no reply, no answer, I got fed up and called Bunnings to tell them I was going to return the blind.

To their credit Bunnings had no problem in giving me a refund (of course the blind had been installed and I'd thrown away the original plastic packaging). I did say I wouldn't mind an exchange providing they could guarantee the smell wouldn't come back, but they said because they were all made in large batches, the next blinbd might/could/would have the same problem.

Anyway, just a warning for anyone consider the Zone Hardware brand roller blinds. It wasn't that cheap, the blockout blind I bought was definitely not suitable for use, and the importing company doesn't seem to care about customer concerns or health of the products they sell. I suspect poor manufacturing quality assurance, and the local importer probably has no idea what chemical cocktails and ingredients go into the overseas manufacture of that blind.